Stardew Valley, Disco Elysium, Battletech, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Persona 5, Elite: Dangerous, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Outer Wilds, Kerbal Space Program, Factorio, Rimworld

So many, the 10s' were pretty good for games

Portal 2

Dark Souls/1/2/3Bloodborne

Persona 5

Undertale/Deltarune (Fuck you this game is objectively amazing and you only hate it to be contrarian)

Monster Hunter World

Super Mario Odessy

The Legend Of Zelda Breath of the Wild

Owlboy

Shovel Knight

Disco Elysium

and probably more I've forgotten.

Hollow Knight should be on almost anyone's shortlist for game of the decade. It combines a 2D metroidvania world with soulslike difficulty, story themes/lore, and death-respawn mechanics, and incorporates Zelda-like collectibles and upgrades alongside a highly-customizable equip system resembling the badge system from the first two Paper Mario games. The game is quite cheap for the quantity of unique content included (something like $15) and all of the DLC is free.

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Thanks to another commentator I realized that Disco Elysium counts for this category and absolutely has to get my vote. Dark Souls is solidly second place.

There has never been a game yet that has the massive fucking balls of Disco Elysium. Imagine releasing a game about substance abuse, mental illness, and communism to critical AND mass market appeal.

Think about how many games don't bother to say ANYTHING at all. And then there's Disco.

Fire Emblem Three Houses. I didn't hate Awakening and Fates as much as some people, but Three Houses is way better in basically every way. It's harder, it has a story that isn't hot garbage, the new things it adds aren't just gimmicks. I liked the compromises between new and old, and all the things they got rid of needed to go. Maybe in another decade I'll want a Fire Emblem with a second generation, but not now.

Disco Elysium is almost everything I've ever wanted in an rpg. I love just the experience of playing it, the way it looks and moves. The voce acting isn't always perfect, but it always oes the job.

Undertale is just really fun the whole way through, and it tells a good, emotionally resonant story.

Superhot isn't necessarily one of the best games of the decade, but it is one of the games I've played the most. It's got a great central mechanic, and once you beat the game you don't have to think about the story ever again.

Hatoful Boyfriend and Undertale are my top 2 picks this time around

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Just ones I have played:

City Skylines - Revitalized the city sim genre. Dethroned Sim City in a lot of ways.

Portal 2 - A sequel but still a standout in terms of graphics, story, and game play.

Dishonored - Some ex developers of the Thief series plus the art director from Half-life 2. Really good entry in the brief revitalization of immersive sims.

Dishonored 2 - Some of the best art direction in the biz. Environments are realized and immersive. Game play is accessible but gives you room to play different styles. The first was good and the second kicked it up a notch.

RDR/Undead Nightmare - While I didn't find the game play super thrilling, it was a very good game overall. One of the biggest impacts it had was visiting a town in Mexico and just watching the locals go about their day. The wind started blowing a little and a lady hanging laundry said there was a storm coming. She went inside. A few minutes later it got cloudy, the wind blew stronger, and it started raining. Then puddles formed in the recesses of the terrain. Just crazy attention to detail. And the Zombie DLC was really nice.

Fallout New Vegas - Fixed a lot of the problems with 3 and felt like a true sequel to Fallout. Plenty of content and ways to play.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - A good example of how to modernize older games the right way. The ending was lazy but the game overall is great. Helped breathe some life back into the dying immersive sim genre.

Superhot - Honorable mention for unique game play and take on the FPS genre

Overwatch - I probably like this game more for the people I met playing it and the time in which it came out. But a totally new IP from Blizzard, team shooter. The Beta was fun and the first year or so of the game was also good. I feel like the hype around it died after major re-balances but still nice for what it was.

Pokemon GO - I only played this for a summer like most people. I was at college that year and everyone was playing it. You could just meet up with strangers and go on an adventure together. Again, another one that had more to do with the social aspect of playing it more than the game itself.

Minecraft - I remember Notch visiting 4chan's /v/ and asking for advice on what to do with it. I remember playing it way back then when there wasn't hardly anything to do in the game. Over time it blew up and became one of the biggest games for the generation after mine. It created an entire genre of open world survival sandbox schlock and that's okay.

Prey - The third mention of an Arkane Studios game. The last little flicker of light in the death of immersive sims. RIP to a real genre.

Borderlands 2 - I know this game is divisive as fuck. But it is one of my favorite games ever. Sure the writing is pretty cringe with the epic bacon humor shit. It also re-characterized everything and everyone from the first game. A reboot so soft that it's a sequel. I have put so much fucking time into this game and all the DLC. There is tons of content. I didn't even play it when it came out because BL1 put me off the series. But once I did I was hooked. It's just a great game to casually drop into, kill some dudes, and waste time. I liked the art style and settings. It made me go back and finish BL1 w/ DLC.

Borderlands TPS - Made by a different studio, different writers, this game is still good imo. It does feel like one long DLC and that's okay. You can legitimately beat this game in a day if you wanted. But I love the moon setting and lunar motif. I think the story is a bit tighter and less meandering than 2 and 1. It adds a couple of new mechanics to the series. And you get all the backstory on Jack.

Factorio - Good logistics sim. Has a lot of potential for new content. Replayability lies more in optimization of your strategies than needing to develop new strategies. I feel like you get a good rhythm going for tech development then you've beat the game. Getting to the endgame isn't supremely difficult, but getting their in the most efficient way can be. A good first entry but Factorio 2 needs more.

Bioshock Infinite - Absolutely pissed over the story and game play. It dumbs down Bioshock's mechanics and that's bad considering Bioshock was just a dumbed down System Shock. The setting was neat. I would love to have a sci-fi shooter set in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The E3 version of the game was going to be so cool and really do more than Bioshock 1 or 2. Development problems caused them to basically rebuild the game a few months from release. So much content got chopped and the story changed drastically. What was gong to be a nuanced faction-based system of warring ideologies became a simplistic "extremes bad" story with some dumb time travel shit tacked on.

Batman: Arkham City - It's not that this is a bad game or worse than Asylum. It just didn't bring the same kind of feel for me as Asylum did. It was an okay Batman game that I feel didn't do enough to be better than Asylum.

God of War III - It was alright. It wasn't bad by any means and they did try to increase the scale over the first two. But it was also after having two other games before it and it didn't reinvent the series like the PS4 sequel did.

Borderlands 3 - I don't hate it but it just doesn't live up to the previous entries. The core game play itself is mostly the same but with QoL improvements. Obviously there's a graphical improvement where as 2 was pretty much the same as 1. Too many technical issues. Too much relying on live distribution for content. The DLC is really hit or miss. The story is an absolute mess. BL2 re-wrote a lot but it worked because BL1 was so minimalist in story it was basically a blank slate. BL3 tries to do the same thing and it doesn't work. Plus the writing is just bad in terms of structure and plot.

Wolfenstein TNO/TNC - Not bad games. Not a bad take on the IP. Supremely adequate is what I'd call them. Great art direction and improvements there. Modernization of the old game play. But nothing that makes you think it's the best game ever. Just a really competent remake/reboot.

Dark Souls series. I'll be honest though, I didn't play 99.99% of the games.

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BOTW - only game that I've ever played through and immediately felt like there was a hole in my soul after the game was over. Like someone took away my favorite toy. Engaging. Thought provoking. Just overall the most fun I've ever had in a single game setting. Also, only Zelda game I've ever played through out of 3 I've tried getting into (Wind Waker and the one that launched with the Wii i never finished/got bored of).

GTA5 - at least the base game (I don't play online). I enjoyed the cinematic storyline. It's a stunning game, visually. Plenty to do and see, for completionists and casual players alike.

Mario Odyssey - I think 3D World kind of bored me and wore it's welcome out in short order, so walking into Odyssey my expectations were low. But 10 minutes into the game I was blown away with the new mechanics and level of freedom Nintendo gave me as the Mario user. Even the music is awe inspiring, like the jazz piece in New Donk City had me mouthing 'wow' as I was playing it. Might be the best Mario game of all time next to SMB3 and SMW.

PT - who knew a demo could fuck with your head that bad? Downloaded it on a whim one night (with no clue what it was or who made it) and my wife and I were locked in for hours, totally creeped out.

Rocket League - first online competitive game of the (then) new generation where I didn't feel the goal was to drain my credit card so I could beat the other team. True game of skill and communication. I just wonder what will happen when the servers turn off.

botw